New York City 3/47

In 1947, using his own Presto disc recording machine, Alan Lomax recorded bluesmen Big Bill Broonzy (1893–1958), Memphis Slim (1915–1988), and Sonny Boy Williamson (1914–1948) at Decca Studios in New York City, after they had given a concert at Town Hall. In a session of candid oral history and song, the three artists explain the origin and nature of the blues. "They began with blues as a record of the problems of love and women in the Delta world," Lomax wrote. "They explored the cause of this in the stringent poverty of Black rural life. They recalled life in the Mississippi work camps, where the penitentiary stood at the end of the road, waiting to receive the rebellious. Finally, they came to the enormities of the lynch system that threatened anyone who defied its rules." The interviews were issued in a fictionalized form in Common Ground (1948) under the title "I Got the Blues," but they were deemed so controversial that their album release was delayed for ten years. When United Artists finally issued them on LP as "Blues in the Mississippi Night" in 1959, Alan used pseudonyms to protect the artists and their families.

Stackerlee

Unidentified piano boogie (I)

Commentary by Big Bill Broonzy on his childhood, learning guitar, and working as a musician

Commentary by Big Bill Broonzy on playing music for black audiences

Commentary by Big Bill Broonzy on his career in the army

Commentary by Big Bill Broonzy on his career and segregation in the army

Commentary by Big Bill Broonzy on racism in and leaving the South

Commentary by Big Bill Broonzy on migration to and work in Chicago

Commentary by Big Bill Broonzy on his early recording and song-writing career

Commentary by Big Bill Broonzy on receiving royalties and the company he kept

Commentary by Big Bill Broonzy on Memphis Minnie, Lonnie Johnson, and Blind Blake

Commentary by Big Bill Broonzy on Leroy Carr, Tampa Red, Georgia Tom Dorsey, and Blind Lemon Jefferson

Commentary by Big Bill Broonzy on working as a musician in New York City

Commentary by Big Bill Broonzy on railroad and levee gangs, work songs, and leaving the army

Commentary by Big Bill Broonzy on racism and amorous relationships

Commentary by Big Bill Broonzy on his mother and fighting

Unidentified piano boogie (II)

Good News Boogie

Unidentified piano boogie (III)

Black, Brown, And White Blues

Microphone test (part 1)

Microphone test (part 2)

Life Is Like That (test)

Unidentified boogie (test)

Life Is Like That

Interview with Memphis Slim about Life Is Like That

Conversation with Big Bill Broonzy, Memphis Slim, and Sonny Boy Williamson about the origins of the blues (part 1)

Conversation with Big Bill Broonzy, Memphis Slim, and Sonny Boy Williamson about the origins of the blues (part 2)

Conversation with Big Bill Broonzy and Sonny Boy Williamson about work songs from the swamps and bottomlands

I Could Hear My Name A-Ringin'

Conversation with Big Bill Broonzy, Memphis Slim, and Sonny Boy Williamson about the blues (I)

Conversation with Big Bill Broonzy, Memphis Slim, and Sonny Boy Williamson about levee camps and Southern prisons

Conversation with Big Bill Broonzy, Memphis Slim, and Sonny Boy Williamson about levee camps and Southern prisons / Levee camp song fragments

Yonder Come Alberta

Conversation with Big Bill Broonzy, Memphis Slim, and Sonny Boy Williamson about the blues (II)

Conversation with Big Bill Broonzy, Memphis Slim, and Sonny Boy Williamson about levee camps and camp bosses

Conversation with Big Bill Broonzy, Memphis Slim, and Sonny Boy Williamson about Charlie Houlin, food in levee camps and prison farms, and violence between workers

Conversation with Big Bill Broonzy, Memphis Slim, and Sonny Boy Williamson about violence between workers, card sharks, and dudes

Conversation with Big Bill Broonzy, Memphis Slim, and Sonny Boy Williamson about interracial violence and sexual desire

Conversation with Big Bill Broonzy, Memphis Slim, and Sonny Boy Williamson about chain gangs and prison camps

Story of Captain Mack and a conversation with Big Bill Broonzy, Memphis Slim, and Sonny Boy Williamson about the worth of African Americans

Conversation with Big Bill Broonzy, Memphis Slim, and Sonny Boy Williamson about a racist plantation owner and Prince Albert tobacco

Conversation with Big Bill Broonzy, Memphis Slim, and Sonny Boy Williamson about ugly men (part 1)

Conversation with Big Bill Broonzy, Memphis Slim, and Sonny Boy Williamson about ugly men (part 2)

Stories about mean and double-jointed men

Conversation with Big Bill Broonzy, Memphis Slim, and Sonny Boy Williamson about double-jointed and even-handed men

Conversation with Big Bill Broonzy, Memphis Slim, and Sonny Boy Williamson about bear hunting, rabbit hunting, chasing chickens, and old-time religion

Dirty jokes

Unidentified guitar instrumental (fragment)

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